


Hospital Time

by blackjack419



Series: X-COM: Bravo 419 [2]
Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:59:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7631638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackjack419/pseuds/blackjack419
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>X-COM operatives recovering in the hospital. </p>
<p>Some have been wounded. Others are waiting to die. I'm pretty sure one of them just has a cold. They all wait to head back to the field.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hospital Time

I always remember the smells of hospitals. 

 

There's always two right? The first smells, when they drag some poor bastard who's half plasma burns into the room, trying to find some undamaged skin for an IV. Burnt flesh. Burnt human flesh. And the hair. The smell of burning hair lingers. Blood. Sweat.

 

Then what comes after. The disinfectant. The swabbing. The artificial smell. That "piney lemon" smell, one so...everywhere. You smell it everywhere, like it's covering something. You know what it's covering. You know the smells of pain, and dying, and death.

 

I was reminded of the first smell three hours ago. Doctor M'Benga was checking up on my ankle - broke it on the way back to the SkyRanger. Successful bug hunt, not a scratch on the whole fireteam. A chryssalid corpse twitches. Damn bug. I jump back, and pop. There goes my ankle.

 

 When I got laid up, all I could smell was the second smell. The clean. Wasn't bad. Smelt better than the ghetto in Rio we were just deployed to. The smell was everywhere - right up until it wasn't. A gurney had burst into the ward, and just like that, the artificial smell was gone. The acrid smell of burning hair...then the flesh. It smells like cooking meat, but off. Like a BBQ, but wrong. Maybe it's the blood. Maybe it's knowing your comrade across the ward was fighting for their life. Maybe you were in the middle of dinner, and you can't look at the Salisbury steak anymore without dry heaving. 

 

The smell in hospitals never leaves you alone after that.


End file.
